heroes tribute: a celebration of the music of philip glass
TRANSCRIPT
T I C K E T S E R V I C E S 9 1 9 . 8 4 3 . 3 3 3 38
3F E B R U A R Y
� 8 : 0 0 P M
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Sees Frank Zappa and
Jeff erson Airplane perform.
Starts listening to rock and
roll and thinking about
amplifi cation in his music.
First concert at
Queens College on
April 13, 1968.
U N C S Y M P H O N Y O RC H ES T R A
Dan Bejar, Brad Cook, Mac McCaughan, William Tyler, Ken Vandermark, Jenn Wasner, Joe Westerlund
A M e rg e R ec o r d s G ro u p
Heroes Tribute:A Celebration of the Music of Philip Glass,David Bowie and Brian Eno featuring
Tonu Kalam, conductor
G L A S S A T 8 0 . O R G 9
“We live in a boundary- defying era.”
We live in a boundary-defying era. Artists from
Esperanza Spalding to Chris Thile effortlessly
transcend divisions between high and low, pop
and jazz, composition and improvisation: the
twenty-first century is a century of the musical
omnivore, characterized by musicians who
absorb a wide range of styles and create work
that exists outside of category or genre.
But this contemporary moment has a strong
precedent in the remarkable cross-pollination that
took place between the worlds of the popular and
avant-garde in the 1970s and 1980s. Experimental
figures like Laurie Anderson wrote chart-topping
singles while punk heroes such as Lou Reed
unleashed noisy electronic masterpieces. And at
the center of these polyglot developments was
the late David Bowie. In 1971, he and Brian Eno
attended a performance of Glass’s Music with
Changing Parts in London, and the rock icon struck
up a friendship with Glass. For several years,
Eno had been immersed in the music of Glass’s
counterpart Steve Reich; subsequent works such as
Eno’s 1978 ambient Music for Airports drew together
the language of minimalist composition and the
static quality of sound installations. And at the time,
Glass was fascinated by the “Berlin Trilogy,” three
seminal Bowie albums created in collaboration
with Eno and producer Tony Visconti. Glass
later said that “I’d never encountered pop music
conceived with that level of artistic ambition.”
“ I ’ d n e v e r e n c o u n t e r e d P o p
M u s i c C o n c e i v e d w i t h t h at l e v e l
o f A r t i s t i c A m b i t i o n . ”
Inspired by this artistic exchange, Glass
wrote two symphonies in the 1990s based on
“Berlin Trilogy” albums: the “Low” Symphony
in 1992 and the “Heroes” Symphony in 1996. As the
composer once wrote, “In a series of innovative
recordings made in the late '70s, David and
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“The curious but not at all surprising fact was the development of my own musical language, at least conceptually (not at all a small point!), had a relationship to Richard [Serra]'s development. The two elements involved in Richard’s work, the materials and the process, were the same issues I was addressing as they presented themselves in music.”
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CPAExclusive
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“It seemed that for the fi rst time, a music world that was equivalent to the world of painting, theater, and dance began to emerge. The music world could now say ‘This is the music that goes with the art.’”
Philip Glass Ensemble
is founded and makes
fi rst recording.
Exclusive
G L A S S A T 8 0 . O R G 11
Brian combined influences from world music,
experimental avant-garde, and rock and roll and
thereby redefined the future of popular music. The
continuing influence of these works has secured
their stature as part of the new ‘classics’ of our time.
Just as composers of the past have turned to music
of their time to fashion new works, the work of
Bowie and Eno became an inspiration and point
of departure of symphonies of my own.”
Bowie sat in the audience at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music for the premiere of the “Low”
Symphony in 1992, and joined Glass on stage
following the concert to receive a standing ovation.
Glass and Bowie subsequently collaborated for
benefit performances at Tibet House, a cultural
center that Glass helped found in 1987. “For
David, nothing was casual,” Glass said in 2016,
observing that though the benefit concerts were
often thrown together at the last minute, Bowie
rehearsed tirelessly nonetheless. “Every time he
did a performance, it was the best he could do.”
In tribute to this musical friendship and to Bowie’s
passing in 2016, the UNC Symphony Orchestra will
perform the “Heroes” Symphony. And to echo that
flow of musical influences, a team of musicians
affiliated with Merge Records will reimagine the
original Heroes album. Mac McCaughan, a Merge
co-founder and frontman of the band Superchunk,
described his teenage obsession with Bowie: “His
constantly shifting identity made me re-evaluate
what I liked in music, and how drama and identity
worked with music itself.” For the performance,
McCaughan added, “I think we can create a version
of the album that stays true to the spirit of the
original without attempting to make a straight copy.”
Jenn Wasner, half of the indie duo Wye Oak,
remarked that “Often, there is perceived to
be a division between the worlds of classical
and popular music, but Glass’s “Heroes”
Symphony is a perfect example of what can
happen when those false boundaries are
ignored. Inspiration is everywhere.” n
Es s ay by W i l l i a m RO b i n
Travels to Europe
with artist Richard
Serra to help with
shows and installations.
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First concerts of Glass’s music in Europe, on a program which
also featured music by Steve Reich and film by Michael Snow.
The concert at Stedelijk is interrupted by an audience member.
This is Glass’s first concert interruption “but not my last.”
P R O G R A M
PHILIP GLASS Symphony No. 4, “Heroes”
UNC Symphony Orchestra
Tonu Kalam, conductor
Selections from David Bowie's Heroes
A Merge Records group
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